Hedyotis diffusa Combined with Scutellaria barbata Are the Core Treatment of Chinese Herbal Medicine Used for Breast Cancer Patients: A Population-Based Study

Yuan-Chieh Yeh; Hsing-Yu Chen; Sien-Hung Yang; Yi-Hsien Lin; Jen-Hwey Chiu; Yi-Hsuan Lin; Jiun-Liang Chen

doi:10.1155/2014/202378

Hedyotis diffusa Combined with Scutellaria barbata Are the Core Treatment of Chinese Herbal Medicine Used for Breast Cancer Patients: A Population-Based Study

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2014:2014:202378. doi: 10.1155/2014/202378. Epub 2014 Mar 9.

Authors

Yuan-Chieh Yeh¹, Hsing-Yu Chen², Sien-Hung Yang³, Yi-Hsien Lin⁴, Jen-Hwey Chiu⁵, Yi-Hsuan Lin², Jiun-Liang Chen⁶

Affiliations

¹ Division of Chinese Internal Medicine, Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, No.123 Dinghu Road, Guishan Township, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan.
² Division of Chinese Internal Medicine, Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, No.123 Dinghu Road, Guishan Township, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan ; Graduate Institute of Clinical Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan.
³ Division of Chinese Internal Medicine, Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, No.123 Dinghu Road, Guishan Township, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan ; School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan.
⁴ Institute of Traditional Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan ; School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan ; Division of Radiotherapy, Cheng-Hsin General Hospital, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
⁵ Institute of Traditional Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan ; Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei 112, Taiwan ; Division of General Surgery, Cheng-Hsin General Hospital, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
⁶ Division of Chinese Internal Medicine, Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, No.123 Dinghu Road, Guishan Township, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan ; School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan ; Institute of Traditional Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan.

Abstract

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which is the most common type of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) used in Taiwan, is increasingly used to treat patients with breast cancer. However, large-scale studies on the patterns of TCM prescriptions for breast cancer are still lacking. The aim of this study was to determine the core treatment of TCM prescriptions used for breast cancer recorded in the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. TCM visits made for breast cancer in 2008 were identified using ICD-9 codes. The prescriptions obtained at these TCM visits were evaluated using association rule mining to evaluate the combinations of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) used to treat breast cancer patients. A total of 37,176 prescriptions were made for 4,436 outpatients with breast cancer. Association rule mining and network analysis identified Hedyotis diffusa plus Scutellaria barbata as the most common duplex medicinal (10.9%) used for the core treatment of breast cancer. Jia-Wei-Xiao-Yao-San (19.6%) and Hedyotis diffusa (41.9%) were the most commonly prescribed herbal formula (HF) and single herb (SH), respectively. Only 35% of the commonly used CHM had been studied for efficacy. More clinical trials are needed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of these CHM used to treat breast cancer.